SWAMPSCOTT — While Town Meeting members overwhelmingly voted Monday to approve funding for a new consolidated elementary school, the three-hour debate leading up to the vote featured a number of concerns from residents about the project.
Whether the new K-4 school, which will combine the town’s three existing elementary schools into one building, gets built will ultimately be decided at a special town-wide election on Oct. 19. With that date just weeks away, members of the School Committee have made it a priority to respond to some of the concerns raised during this week’s Town Meeting.
According to School Committee Chair Amy O’Connor, some of the major concerns she heard included the size of classes and fifth grade being moved to the town’s middle school. However, O’Connor said the fifth-grade argument is a red herring, saying that the three current elementary schools in town — Clarke, Hadley and Stanley — are already K-4.
“Fifth grade has been part of middle school for longer than I’ve been on the School Committee,” said O’Connor, who has been on the committee for 10 years. “(It’s a) transition that was made and has gone very well.”
As for the large size of the proposed school, which detractors have referred to as a “mega-school” on “vote ‘no'” lawn signs seen around town, O’Connor said that if Swampscott — a town of three square miles — had been incorporated today, there would not be three separate elementary schools.
“To say, ‘I want a neighborhood school’ is a very personal thing,” O’Connor said. She equated this statement to having the same argumentative value of someone saying they love the little street that they live on; it’s emotional not fact-driven, she explained.
Town Meeting members voted, 244 to 39, to authorize the town to appropriate funds for the cost of the new elementary school, which is anticipated to be $97.67 million. Of that amount, the town’s share for the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA)-approved project is expected to be approximately $64 million. The state, or MSBA, would reimburse the town approximately $34.35 million for its share of the project.
“The estimated annual net impact on the median, single-family household tax bill is $300,” said Finance Committee Chairman Tim Dorsey at this week’s Town Meeting.
While many Town Meeting members spoke favorably of the new school prior to the vote, other concerns raised by project opponents included how much it is expected to cost, as well as student safety during drop-off and pick-up times, especially in high-traffic areas.
In addition, some Town Meeting members were opposed to the town using eminent domain to take land from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lynn (UUCGL). However, Select Board Chair Peter Spellios said that no land would be taken to build an easement; rather, the town would use part of an existing parking lot on the property of UUCGL and build sidewalks into a preexisting island in the same parking lot.
Suzanne Wright, chair of the School Building Committee and a member of the School Committee, said that her colleagues are working to make this work as well as possible.
“We have had a traffic engineer since day one and we have ways to mitigate as much traffic as possible,” Wright said. “It’s an ongoing procedure up until and after the school opens.”
Wright added that one of the reasons Stanley Elementary’s location, in terms of where to build the new school, is more ideal is the ability to have multiple different departure routes for traffic to flow through. She said that Superintendent of Schools Pamela Angelakis has agreed to set different start times at the new elementary school and Swampscott Middle School to help ease traffic; in addition, she said the School Building Committee is looking into adding park-and-walk locations leading into the school.
“This project has been the culmination of a lot of work,” said Wright. “It’s a very well-thought-out, comprehensive evaluation of sites and configuration. It came down to what’s the best for our students and what’s the best for our town, and I think the School Building Committee is doing exactly that.”
